Featured Stories

Arsenal goalkeeper Wojciech Szczesny’s father Maciej Szczesny has come out in strong defense of his son following criticism of his performance in the game against Southampton on New Year’s Day.

Szczesny was culpable for both goals that Arsenal conceded but Maciej put the blame squarely on the defenders and claimed it was their errors that cost the team the points, so far as to comparing captain for the match Per Mertesacker with a rhino.

“He made a mistake for the first (Southampton) goal, coming too far from the goal, but please look at the Arsenal defence – how these guys are playing is a disaster, but for some reason, nobody pays any attention to it.

‘Laurent Koscielny should immediately have run (back) to protect Wojciech, and Per Mertesacker should have stood in the goal,’ said Maciej.

‘Unfortunately they did not do that and gave him zero support, and in that situation Mertesacker showed the agility of a rhinoceros.

Maciej went on further about how Arsenal were not giving enough support to his son after games to help him improve.

‘Wojciech is often paying for it (the mistakes), and that he really cares. He needs someone who will critically analyse every game with him, but also remain positive.

‘Someone should support him but the coaching staff at Arsenal are not doing that, meanwhile the entire defence this season is an embarrassment.’

It is not the first time that the senior Szczesny has had some harsh words to say about Arsenal and Arsene Wenger. In the March of 2013, he accused Arsene of looking for a scapegoat in his son to blame the poor season, for which the Arsenal goalkeeper apologized on his father’s behalf.

This astonishing rant won’t go down well either, with reports suggesting that Arsene Wenger may continue with David Ospina for the game against Stoke City on Sunday. However, that would be very much unlike Wenger, and considering that he had a very good game against West Ham just before the Southampton game, it would be very harsh punishment indeed.

Maciej did not have any explanation for the alleged smoking incident, claiming that his son was not stupid but could not comment on it as he had not talked with him yet.

But it has been widely reported that Szczesny has indeed been fined 20,000 pounds for smoking, which if true, is a very stupid thing to do in such a place. At least Jack Wilshere, the previous offender for the same crime, did it in a night club and only got caught because somebody clicked a candid picture.